Ionized Gas in E/S0 Galaxies with Dust Lanes

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

We present results from an ongoing program to study the properties of dust and ionized gas in E/S0 galaxies with dust lanes. Our observational program comprises of H-alpha and broad-band images obtained with the SAAO 1.9m, the VATT 1.8m and the 1m telescope on WO.
A detailed analysis of 30 galaxies shows the presence of a diffusely distributed ionized gas component in most objects. The extended gas morphology is typically smooth and closely follows the dust structure, with a clear correlation between the mass of both components. The dust content in each galaxy is estimated by measuring the extinction by the extragalactic dust in the dark lanes. The derived extinction law is used to correct the measured colors for intrinsic dust extinction and the data are fitted with a stellar population synthesis model. We find that the line-emission and colors of most objects are consistent with the presence of an “old” stellar population ( 10 Gyr) and a small fraction of a “young” population ( 10- 100 Myr).
The younger stellar population may have formed at a later stage of the evolution of the galaxy through either a merger event or a secondary star-formation burst. Strong evidence for the external origin of the ISM is provided by the apparent inclination of the dust and ionized gas disks with respect to the galactic plane in a large fraction of our sample galaxies. Further spectroscopic observations will be obtained to study the gaseous disks dynamics and to characterize the underlying stellar populations for evidence of multiple phases of star formation and assembly history.

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